She looked at him with a softness in her eyes.
"Thank you, Danvers," she said, and the glance made me think that, even did I allow such a manifest impossibility, he could never have invested money in any way to bring him a richer return.
It was a task beyond me to get sensible talk from him with Nancy waiting in the moonlight, a moonlight fragrant with honeysuckle and climbing roses; and I bade him to be off to her; and I opened the papers which had come by a late post.
I heard a merry talk between them as Huey came in to say that the white night-flowers were in bloom by the fountain, and I went off with him to have a look at them. As I came back I turned into the path which led to the porch, intending to tell them of these wonderful blooms, when I saw the two of them on the steps, standing near together, and Danvers's arms were around the girl he loved, and he was looking down into her eyes with rapture in his fond, handsome face, and I heard him say:
"When, when, when?"
"When do you want it?" she asked.
"When do I want it! Now, to-night," and he drew her lips to his.
"Wife!" he said.
When I reentered the library I found it occupied by Sandy, who had walked across country from his own place with some news concerning the whisky tax. As we sat in dispute over it, upward of an hour later, I heard Nancy go to her room without coming in to wish us a good night, and a second later Danvers Carmichael stood in the doorway. It was good for us older men to see the lad, and at the sight of him I was out under the stars of Landgore; the sound of gipsy singing, the salt from the sea, and the odor of blown hawthorn were in the room, and I was young again with Marian Ingarrach folded in my arms. The brooding look was gone from his eyes and his face bore a strange illumination. He had added something to, rather than lost any of the cocksureness of his manner; but the happiness of him, combined with the love and passion of his ardent nature, made him a singularly handsome creature as he came toward us.